Proofreading and editing articles for your blog
Many people are tempted to not even bother proofreading and editing their blog, and they have a point. After all, a blog is your creation; it is your project and your work. You are the one who is taking time out of your life in order to create the blog, so if you do not want to proofread or edit your blog, then good for you. After all, nobody says you have to wash your car if you don’t want to, or flush the toilet after every use. There are a few reasons why you may wish to edit and proofread your blog, and there are a few things to consider when you do it.
It will not affect your SEO unless it’s terrible
This is a fact that many people do not understand because they think that the search engine software is a lot more sophisticated than it is. The fact is that poor grammar will not make your website any less search engine friendly. But, terrible grammar will damage the search engine friendliness of your web page (such as what is seen with spun content). Do you really want to risk the fact that your grammar may have slipped into the realms of terrible because you did not proofread your blog?
You lose the respect of readers if it has mistakes
If you are trying to make a point or teach the reader something, then you need to command a certain amount of respect from them. You will lose some of that respect if your content has terrible spelling, grammar or syntax mistakes.
It is harder to take you serious if it is not proofread
Your text may not have any mistakes when it comes to the idea, thesis or premise, but people will not take you seriously if your content is not proofread. After all, if you could not be bothered to check your written mistakes then where is the proof that you checked your ideas or research?
It is the finishing touch to your blog post
Do not look upon your proofreading and editing as a mundane task to be done after the writing is finished. Look upon it as the finishing touch of your blog post.
You may have made thesis or idea errors
Proofreading will highlight any errors such as contradiction and flow. It will also help to show you where your text is unbalanced. Plus, sometimes a little bit of proofreading will show you were you have mistyped a word, to the point where it changes the whole meaning of the sentence, which will cause further confusion.
Read it through to check continuity and balance
You need to read it through to see where you have fractured your meaning, or even simply quoted one figure and then misquoted it the next time. You can also read through to see if your arguments are balanced enough. Try to put yourself in your reader’s shoes and do not be too biased. If you do, then even your correct points will be hard to take seriously, a little like Michael Moore movies. Instead, try to insert a little more balance, in the same way that Werner Herzog does in his documentaries.
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Proofread paragraph by paragraph
It is far easier to proofread your text if you go paragraph per paragraph. Treat each paragraph as if it were a blog post in itself. It is very easy to start proofreading your post at the beginning and just be reading it by the middle. You need to consciously stop and start with each paragraph to be sure you are in the right frame of mind.
Check the points that you are making
The things we know, we do not actually know! We are constantly misinformed about things all the time. It is better if you check your facts before you perpetuate misinformation.
Be careful not to duplicate from other websites
It is very easy to quote from other websites and inadvertently create a chunk of duplicate content that is penalized by the search engines. If you are going to quote large chunks from other websites, then do it by Google approved methods. If you have to quote a whole paragraph, then consider paraphrasing it.
Alice Norum is a recent college graduate and regularly contributes reviews on writing services, articles on blogging, writing and social media.
